LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Roberto Rossellini: Open City
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Roberto Rossellini made The Flowers of St. Francis as a genuine celebration of ideal Christianity -- the Zen-like benefits of absolute selflessness, humility, and love. It’s a pleasurably simple film, one that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is, which some viewers may find off-putting. In fact, particularly in today’s jaded era, the film’s very simplicity makes it seem utterly, almost embarrassingly naïve -- silly, even -- and it makes one wonder how the auteur behind the gritty neorealist masterpiece Rome Open City (1945) could immerse himself so easily into a disjointed series of vignettes in which idealized Franciscan monks illustrate the potential of human goodness.
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Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City instantly, markedly, and permanently changed the landscape of film history. Made at the end of World War II, it has been credited with initiating a revolution in and reinvention of modern cinema, bold claims that are substantiated when its impact on how films are conceptualized, made, structured, theorized, circulated, and viewed is examined. This volume offers a fresh look at the production history of Rome Open City; some of its key images, and particularly its representation of the city and various types of women; its cinematic influences and affinities; the complexity of its political dimensions, including the film’s vision of political struggle and the political uses to which the film was put; and the legacy of the film in public consciousness. It serves as a well illustrated, up to date, and accessible introduction to one of the major achievements of filmmaking.
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In 1945, Rossellini made what was arguably his most important film and the epitome of neo-realism, Roma, Citta Aperta ( Rome, Open City ). He had begun writing the film when the Nazis occupied Italy in 1943. To finish, he had to sell some of his own belongings so that he could buy short ends of film stock. Rossellini again used amateur performers, as well as real locations and a crude documentary-like black and white photography. All of these elements defined neo-realism as a film movement, and Roma, Citta Aperta reignited the lagging Italian film industry. The film was not popular in Italy at the time, though it was in the United States and France.
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After a series of short films, Rossellini feature debuted during the war with Un pilota ritorna (1942), written by his younger colleague Antonioni. With Roma, città aperta (1945) Rossellini initiated the post-war period's new Italian film wave, the neorealism, which came to influence the film medium worldwide, Ingmar Bergman included (see Harbour City, 1948). During the latter part of his career, Rossellini's films became less political, more existential and often placed in more bourgeoisie milieus. Among these works Stromboli (1950) and Viaggio in Italia (1954) deserve a mention.
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One of the keys to the success of Open City is all the time Rossellini devotes to developing the ordinary Italian. The characters are distinct enough, but there's ... a general life and collective spirit to what's left of the humble little country. The first 45 minutes are spent making the viewer care for the Italians and Italy as a whole. Some people find this portion to be slow but, while the Nazi presence is unmistakable, it allows you to concentrate on the "innocent" starving people that are trying to move on. Then, when the Nazis rear their ugly head and kill one off the favorite characters for no reason, it's such a startling, infuriating event. The scene placed at the beginning of the film would have a certain amount of power, but it's the bond you've formed with this character that allows it to rip you apart.
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Rossellini likes to create on-screen mazes out of buildings, walkways, etc. There are paths through yards and walls in the village in Stromboli; in the mill where the heroine takes the Americans in the opening of Paisan; in the ruins through which Bergman and Sanders walk in Strangers. Another example of this: the Florence episode of Paisan. Florence is turned into a giant maze of roofs, tunnels, courtyards, and even corridors of the Uffizi Gallery! Quite beautiful and imaginative. Both here and in Stromboli, Rossellini seems to have used real locations to create his mazes - these do not seem to be studio sets.
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